Tides of Longing (Bendy and the Ink Machine)

8- What We Have is Enough

Author's Notes: This is the last chapter in this book. The next book is called Cares of Communion and will be available at my profile if you don't see it there already.

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"'For his eyes are on the ways of a man, and he sees all his steps.'" – Job 34:21

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Sammy had finally, finally allowed himself to embrace not just Francine, but all associated with her.

How incredible it was what this band room had witnessed until this point.

It was the room where Francine revealed so briefly yet so very long ago her first deepest fear- that Sammy hated her, kept her trapped alongside him for whatever selfish need his twisted religion compelled him for. This was where in his utter desperation to grasp the communion and comradery he had longed for so, so long, he made himself bare- revealing how unsure he was in what he had done for his lord all these years. This was where Sammy began to realize that it was not a human sacrifice Bendy seemed to require of him but a sacrifice of his old, self-preserving ways; he was to guide the woman through this darkness and was to help retain the flame of her untouched soul lest it be taken by the very ink that had imprisoned him for as long as he could remember.

For Francine, these walls were audience to her songs. These instruments listeners to her confessions of rage and misery. But most of all- and she had to remember, it was most importantly- that the dust and the dangling microphones lined with the papery golden light of the lightbulbs and candles were friends in the reconciliation of the disciples time and time again. As she let the cold of his body sweep over her, it set free a bittersweet smile.

And in this moment, the cutout above watched in silence, the visage of their god smiling down upon them.

The eyes that not only saw all, but had seen everything this room had ever, ever seen.

Even before the death of the studio, even before the rebirth of Sammy and his department into the prophet and his ghostly congregation.

And now this man of curses and faith was beginning to wonder what those eyes saw, too.

They were, of course, the same painted upon his second face.

Now, Francine had proven her own determination, but to say Sammy was without his own would have neglected the very nature of his existence. If he did not have it, where would his lost soul be? Doubtlessly it would still be rotting in the puddles, groaning and wailing with the eternal anguish of every other stolen being that had nothing more in them than to just give up.

His faith was what had caused him to reform each time his body dissipated, what led him to put on the mask and see life anew. He had hope now, and it took a long time to see it, but Francine seemed to be the penultimate accumulation of such biding hope- the fuzz of light at the end of the tunnel, the blurring colors on the horizon as the sun finally prepares to emerge and stain the darkness away.

But about the same time, her small flicker amid the black made him so terribly afraid of the shapes it made, like a candle placed upon the floor of a cave; just enough to set free the shadows that made his heart flutter with the worst of anxieties.

Just enough to know something was there, but not what it was.

Maybe Sammy didn't have his own eyes, but both disciples could barely see in their peripheral that their new "complete" view of the world wasn't complete at all. The woman now had to hide the existence of an entire human being, and the man could barely glimpse into the light that peeks through the crack under the closed door of his past.

To know what happened before all this was what they craved for, but it was also their unbearable affliction- their new lifelong burden.

The two believers now saw someone new:

Francine the man who was responsible for their desolation, who prayed that he never hurt another again even if it meant no one knew he existed.

And Sammy the man who discarded one thin, broken layer of vision over his eyes for another.

Because sometimes to see means to finally become aware you see nothing at all. How amazing and yet awful it was for her to help him discover both how he looked now and how he looked back when he was human.

Human just like her.

But as each felt the other press their hands onto their back, maybe it would be okay anyway. Maybe being human means to be uncomfortable, and maybe to have faith means to also always have fear and doubt.

And the eyes of the studio stared at them, marveling at the preservation of love and selflessness despite all that had been done that could have erased the treasure held between their hearts amid this hug.

It hoped itself to never be provoked to endanger it again.

Please...now that you know...just let it be. There will be no peace in seeking for more.

What we have is enough.